The Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society (JSACS) would improve monitoring of pregnant women flocking private hospitals currently out of its reach and also strengthen tracking of women preferring less popular methods of birth but not aware of status of HIV infection. The objective is to control the flow of the virus into a newlyborn baby of infected mother by bringing left out institutions under the monitoring system.
As part of the effort to eliminate HIV infection among children, the JSACS would partner non-governmental organizations—Plan India and Saathi—to bolster its fight against the deadly strain of virus by covering more women under its Targeted Intervention Programme and Multi Drug Regimen and Prevention of Parent To Child Transmission (PPTCT) programme.
“We are trying to scale up the PPTCT programme and the two NGOs would be doing that with our help. Private hospitals, clinics and institutions that are currently not covered and lack ART (anti-retroviral) regimen would be approached to widen the reach of PPTCT programme,” said in-charge of Targeted Intervention Programme and Statistical Officer of JSACS, Sudeep Sanyal.
According to JSACS, around eight ART centres are currently functioning in Jharkhand including one at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences at Ranchi. The NGOs are likely to enhance the coverage through additional setups however the number of treatment centres that would increase has not been worked out.
Statistics for 2015 state that around 3000 pregnant women in Jharkhand are likely to be HIV positive and could pass the strain to the newly born if not covered by the PPTCT programme. According to officials of JSACS, nearly 1,100 children registered with the ARTs are infected with HIV whereas figures from other sources put that number to be close to 1,800. Notably, according to HSS (HIV Sentinel Surveillance) estimation date for 2012 and 2013, HIV prevalence in Jharkhand is 0.25 and 0.19 correspondingly.
The collaboration of JSACS, Plan India and Saathi has their task cut out as preliminary understanding among the partners in the fight against HIV suggests that the Plan India and Saathi would interact primarily with left out institutions and undertake screening of pregnant women and aid in the anti-retroviral therapy of pregnant women.
The two NGOs would be undertaking their activities with aid from Global Fund, said Sanyal and added that some progress has been made on the ground since September when the NGOs approached the society for assistance in war against the virus.